


Youth

by genevievedarcygranger



Series: More Hotch Content 2020 [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dad Hotch, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lazy Mornings, Mentions of Finding Nemo, Mentions of Foyet, Mentions of Pixar, Mentions of cars, lazy day, mentions of past trauma, rainy day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genevievedarcygranger/pseuds/genevievedarcygranger
Summary: On a lazy, rainy day, Hotch can see his son start to heal after Haley.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Jack Hotchner
Series: More Hotch Content 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024732
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	Youth

_“I want you to be happy,_

_Free to run, get dizzy on caffeine._

_Funny friends that make you laugh,_

_And maybe you're just a little bit dappy.”_

“Youth,” _Glass Animals_

* * *

It was a rare occasion for Hotch to sleep through the night uninterrupted by late work phone calls, his own nightmares, or the needs of his son. Ever since Foyet, Jack had a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and come to Hotch’s room. He never asked to sleep in the bed with Hotch, and he didn’t even make excuses about wanting a glass of water or having a nightmare.

Hotch blamed himself – blamed himself more than Foyet – but particularly blamed himself because he knew he instilled this sense of vigilance (paranoia) in his son when he spent the first three months after Haley’s death obsessively checking the locks on the doors and the curtains of the windows. Eventually, he got rid of the floor-to-ceiling curtains. It also didn’t help that when Hotch went back to work, Jack had keenly developed separation anxiety.

It reminded Hotch of Reid actually; Jack was so afraid of being left alone, abandoned, because Jack had to go away to WitSec and Hotch couldn’t be there to protect him. Despite all of Aunt Jessica’s help, that didn’t stop Jack from waking up in the middle of the night to check for Hotch. No amount of phone calls or FaceTime videos would ever placate Jack’s fears.

Because of his career – a career Hotch could not just stop doing without a deep-seated fear of something else happening – his son was going to grow up like this, fearing a boogeyman that is all too real.

But maybe…maybe it was time that could heal this wound. At least, that was what Hotch was hoping for as he woke up realizing that Jack never came in his room the night before. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was later than Hotch was used to waking up, but since he didn’t have work today, that was fine. Slowly, he got out of bed and went to Jack’s room to check on him.

The door swung open silently to reveal Jack sitting on his bed as he quietly mumbled to himself and played with his action figures. His teddy bear was propped up beside him, seemingly watching instead of playing along. At Hotch’s entrance, Jack looked up and smiled, “Good morning, Daddy.”

“Morning, buddy.” Hotch leaned against the doorjamb, but refrained from crossing his arms as he consciously remembered that that was a closed off expression he didn’t want to exhibit to his son. “Did you sleep well?”

"Uh huh,” Jack’s attention dropped down to his toys again. “It rained last night.”

“It did?” Mentally, Hotch berated himself for not being more aware of the weather. He crossed the room to Jack’s bedroom window and peeked through the blinds. Sure enough, it had not only rained last night but continued to rain this morning. It came down in a steady drizzle, the sky an overcast gray the same color as one of his suits that Prentiss liked and teased him about. The overcast was probably why Hotch was able to sleep in so much with as dark as it was. There were puddles forming in the sodden grass, rippling over and over again hypnotically. Hotch’s ears barely tuned in to the soft sound, muffled from the thick walls of their warm home. “Looks like it’s still raining. No thunder, though.”

“Nope. Or lighting – lightning,” Jack corrected himself. Watching _Cars_ on repeat probably corrected his pronunciation well enough.

“Well, I’m sorry, buddy.” Hotch pulled himself away from the window. “Since it’s raining, that means we can’t go to the zoo today.”

That pulled Jack’s attention away from his toys again. Before he could give voice to his distress, Hotch put his palms up in a placating gesture as he explained, “We’d be outside in the rain all day, Jack, and even with an umbrella we’d get wet and then we’d get sick. You don’t want to get sick, do you?”

Jack closed his mouth and shook his head solemnly.

"Yeah, and even the animals aren’t going to want to be outside during this. They’re going to stay inside, all comfy and cozy in their little houses.”

Just like that, Jack perked back up again. “Just like us, Daddy?”

A soft smile broke out on Hotch’s face. “Yeah, just like us. We can stay in our jammies all day. But,” Hotch held up an index finger, “We still need to brush our teeth.”

“After breakfast?” Jack asked hopefully, a certain tilt to his chin that nearly knocked the breath out of Hotch for how much he looked like Haley in that moment. “Pancakes?”

Scooping a giggling Jack out of bed, Hotch left his bed unmade just like his own and carried his son to the kitchen. Jack was getting pretty big. Soon he’d be so big Hotch wouldn’t be able to carry him like this anymore. But he didn’t want to think about that. So, to distract himself from the hurt and to try and clear away any of the rain clouds lingering around his brain, Hotch infused as much enthusiasm as possible in his voice as he told Jack, “How about this: blueberry pancakes?”

“Yum!”

* * *

After a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs, which were the only eggs Hotch knew how to make, Hotch and Jack were true to their word and brushed their teeth. Then Jack plopped himself in front of the TV in the living room, right in the middle of a lopsided circle of toys, and Hotch settled himself on the couch to peruse some of the work files he had taken home. He was on his second cup of coffee, though he drank it more from habit and to chase the chill away more than anything else. Occasionally, Hotch lifted his eyes from the tiny print to ease the strain and check on Jack who talked animatedly to himself as he narrated the story he came up with for his toys.

Jack had an assortment to play with from his action figures to Legos that Hotch was sure he was going to be stepping on a week from now to so many Hot Wheels. Hotch was glad that Jack had gotten over his _Cars_ phase (if Hotch never heard Larry the Cable Guy again, it would be too soon), but not before he begged for every single car he saw at the store – even the grocery stores had toy cars packed in a plastic tube that Jack managed to find. Reid, who has never had an interest in cars, taught Jack all the different names for the make and models, even broadening Jack’s interest into construction equipment. Morgan and Rossi also spoiled Jack with monster trucks and garbage trucks and even, in Rossi’s case, a remote-control car that conveniently ran out of batteries a week after Jack got it.

Instead of _Cars_ , Jack was in an awkward in-between phase, looking for something to like. Suddenly, Hotch’s attention was being pulled away from his case consultation as Jack pressed the remote into his chest. “Daddy, can we watch a movie?”

“Sure, buddy. What do you want to watch?” Hotch asked while he fervently thought to himself, _Please not_ Cars.

As Hotch flipped through their movies, Jack threw up his hands. “Stop, stop, that one! With the fishes!”

Hotch paused on yet another Pixar movie, one that came out before Jack was born so he didn’t see. “ _Finding Nemo_? You want to watch that one?”

“Uh huh. I saw it at school before.” Jack settled back down in his circle of toys, his fingers fiddling with Legos even as his eyes were glued to the screen. “I like the fishes. They’re pretty.”

“Okay, _Finding Nemo_ it is.” Hotch selected the movie, and then after checking to see if Jack was paying attention, turned back to his paperwork.

But his attention did not stay on his paperwork. Inexplicably, Hotch found himself looking up and watching. At first it started off tame, and Hotch briefly wondered why this movie interested Jack so much. It was cute, until it wasn’t. And then the barracuda came.

Hotch tore his eyes from the screen to his son. Jack’s back was to him so he couldn’t engage much of his body language, but it seemed Jack wasn’t nearly so wound up by that brief five-minute scene as much as Hotch was. It was a G-rated kids movie about fish, and yet, Hotch was breathing more heavily though his nose than he was before. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was a failure as a father, but the longer he sat there and watched Jack watch the movie, the more that those feelings subsided.

Jack was not the first boy in the world to lose his mother at such a young age. Unfortunately, Hotch knew intimately from his work experience just how many children grew up without mothers due the actions of a murderer like Foyet. Hotch wished it wasn’t true, but it was. He wished that his son and so many other children never had to experience what they had. But they did.

That’s why Hotch knew that he couldn’t take the early retirement like Strauss offered him. He wanted to do everything in his power to stop people like Foyet. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a good father.

About the time that the father clownfish met the Blue Tang, Hotch picked up his phone. “Hey, Jack, buddy?”

Jack did not look away from the great white shark on the screen. His hands had stopped fiddling with his toys, and he had shifted to a kneeling position, leaning closer to the screen. “Yes, Daddy?”

“How would you like to go to an aquarium?”

That did get Jack’s attention as he twisted around to look at Hotch. “What’s that?”

“It’s like a zoo, but for fish,” Hotch explained before sweetening the deal. “And it’s indoors, so we don’t have to worry about the rain.”

By now, Jack had climbed to his feet, stepping over his toys nimbly without having to look. “Do they have fish like Nemo, Daddy?”

"They have a lot of different fish, buddy, but the only way to know is to go see. Do you want to go with me? We can always come back and finish the movie tonight?”

A grin split Jack’s face, showing off the new teeth that he had coming in, already more than halfway. “Okay, Daddy, but does this mean I have to change out of my jammies?”

Hotch chuckled. “Yeah, it does. But when we come home, we can change into our jammies tonight.”

“And pick up pizza for dinner?”

He should really start telling Jack no to things, but today was not a day for that. “Sure. You can pick the toppings.”

“Just cheese.”

Fondly rolling his eyes, Hotch ruffled Jack’s blonde hair. It was starting to get darker now with age. “Cheese it is.”


End file.
